Cli­mate change has made mil­lions vul­ner­a­ble to mod­ern slav­ery. Dis­place­ment and migra­tion because of cli­mate change cre­ates a nexus of harm that push­es peo­ple to accept work that active­ly con­tributes to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion of forests, fish­eries, water­ways and land. Weak reg­u­la­tion and enforce­ment, cor­rup­tion, a lack of polit­i­cal will and the lure of prof­its com­bined with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of peo­ple cre­ates a vicious cir­cle of oppor­tu­ni­ty for forced labour, child labour, debt bondage and slavery.

Address­ing UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal (SDG) 8.7 to end mod­ern slav­ery, and the envi­ron­men­tal SDGs, will require those with exper­tise in mod­ern slav­ery and the envi­ron­ment to urgent­ly com­bine their efforts.

Join our speak­ers to explore how an inte­grat­ed approach to address­ing mod­ern slav­ery, cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion can lead to impact­ful inter­ven­tions by gov­ern­ments, com­mu­ni­ties, work­ers and busi­ness. Reg­is­ter to receive a link to the recording.

Host­ed by: Jen­ny Stanger, Anti-slav­ery Task­force, Catholic Arch­dio­cese of Sydney

Facil­i­tat­ed by: Dr Mar­ti­jn Boers­ma, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern Slav­ery and Human Traf­fick­ing at Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame Australia

Fea­tured Speakers:

Ritu Bharad­waj, Senior Researcher, Cli­mate Change Group, Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Envi­ron­ment and Devel­op­ment (IIED). Ritu has more than 20 years of senior pol­i­cy devel­op­ment, research and man­age­ment expe­ri­ence in gov­ern­ment, fund­ing agen­cies and inter­na­tion­al NGOs. She has worked exten­sive­ly on cli­mate resilience, resource con­ser­va­tion, social pro­tec­tion, migra­tion and gen­der issues. Over the years her work has helped devel­op robust evi­dence-based research that has influ­enced pol­i­cy frame­work and strate­gies for numer­ous insti­tu­tions and orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing nation­al gov­ern­ments, inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment and human­i­tar­i­an orga­ni­za­tions. Her pub­li­ca­tions include: Cli­mate-induced Migra­tion and Mod­ern Slav­ery: A Toolk­it for Pol­i­cy­mak­ers and Cli­mate Change, Migra­tion and Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to Trafficking

Dr Bethany Jack­son, Senior Research Fel­low in Mod­ern Slav­ery and Sus­tain­able Ecosys­tems at the Rights Lab, Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham. Orig­i­nal­ly hav­ing a back­ground in remote sens­ing, Bethany has worked on a num­ber of projects apply­ing mixed-meth­ods approach­es to inves­ti­gate the con­nec­tions between mod­ern slav­ery, envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and cli­mate change. Her work has cov­ered this inter­sec­tion in a num­ber of geo­gra­phies and sec­tors, from the food sup­ply to forests, and brick kilns to aqua­cul­ture. She was the lead on the Rights Lab response to COP26 (Glas­gow 2021) and is the lead author of the 2021 report Mod­ern Slav­ery, Envi­ron­men­tal Degra­da­tion and Cli­mate Change: Present and Future Path­ways for Address­ing the Nexus.

Lor­raine Fin­lay, Human Rights Com­mis­sion­er, Aus­tralian Human Rights Com­mis­sion. Lor­raine Fin­lay com­menced her term as Human Rights Com­mis­sion­er on 22 Novem­ber 2021. Pri­or to join­ing the Com­mis­sion Lor­raine has worked as a lawyer and aca­d­e­m­ic spe­cial­is­ing in human rights and pub­lic law. Her most recent roles have been as the Senior Human Traf­fick­ing Spe­cial­ist with the Aus­tralian Mis­sion to ASEAN, and as a law lec­tur­er at Mur­doch Uni­ver­si­ty. In her aca­d­e­m­ic role Lor­raine has lec­tured in areas includ­ing crim­i­nal law, con­sti­tu­tion­al law and inter­na­tion­al human rights, and has been recog­nised with a num­ber of nation­al and uni­ver­si­ty awards for her teach­ing and research.